''Poems'', by

Alfred Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...

, was a two-volume 1842 collection in which new poems and reworked older ones were printed in separate volumes. It includes some of Tennyson's finest and best-loved poems, such as '' Mariana'', ''

The Lady of Shalott "The Lady of Shalott" () is a lyrical ballad by the 19th-century English poet Alfred Tennyson and one of his best-known works. Inspired by the 13th-century Italian short prose text '' Donna di Scalotta'', the poem tells the tragic story of El ...

'', '' The Palace of Art'', '' The Lotos Eaters'', '' Ulysses'', '' Locksley Hall'', '' The Two Voices'', '' Sir Galahad'', and ''

Break, Break, Break "Break, Break, Break" is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson written during early 1835 and published in 1842. The poem is an elegy that describes Tennyson's feelings of loss after Arthur Henry Hallam died and his feelings of isolation while at Mablet ...

''. It helped to establish his reputation as one of the greatest poets of his time.

Volume 1

* Claribel * Lilian * Isabel * Mariana * To —— * Madeline * Song—The Owl * Second Song—To the Same * Recollections of the Arabian Nights * Ode to Memory * Song * Adeline * A Character * The Poet * The Poet's Mind * The Dying Swan * A Dirge * Love and Death * The Ballad of Oriana * Circumstance * The Merman * The Mermaid * Sonnet to J. M. K. *

* Mariana in the South * Eleanore * The Miller's Daughter * Fatima * Œnone * The Sisters * To —— * The Palace of Art * Lady Clara Vere de Vere * The May Queen * The Lotos Eaters * A Dream of Fair Women * Margaret * The Blackbird * The Death of the Old Year * To J. S. * You Ask Me Why, Though Ill at Ease * Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights * Love Thou Thy Land, with Love Far-Brought * The Goose

Volume 2

* The Epic * Morte d'Arthur * The Gardener’s Daughter; or, The Pictures * Dora * Audley Court * Walking to the Mail * St. Simeon Stylites * The Talking Oak * Love and Duty * Ulysses * Locksley Hall *

Godiva Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. She is mainly remembere ...

* The Two Voices *

The Day-Dream ''The Day-Dream'' is a poem written by Alfred Tennyson that was published in 1842. It was an expanded version of his 1830 poem ''The Sleeping Beauty''. It was further altered in 1848 for a dramatic performance for a private gathering with Tennys ...

* Amphion * St. Agnes * Sir Galahad * Edward Gray * Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue * Lady Clare * The Lord of Burleigh * Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere * A Farewell * The Beggar Maid * The Vision of Sin * The Skipping Rope * Move Eastward, Happy Earth, and Leave *

* The Poet's Song

Revisions

The first volume of the book consists of poems taken from his 1830 ''Poems, Chiefly Lyrical'' and 1832 (the imprint reads 1833) ''Poems'', and the second consists of new work. Tennyson had been severely stung by the more hostile reviews of the 1832 book, which had found some of his poems silly, affected and obscure. He meant to reinstate himself in critical esteem, and to this end he very heavily revised the best of his earlier work, often following the reviewers’ detailed criticisms. This in many cases, such as '' Œnone'' and ''

'', resulted in greatly improved versions. In the new poems contained in the second volume he also took to heart the general tenor of the advice his critics had given. By 1840 the work of revision and composition was complete, or virtually so. The increasing danger of his earlier poems being pirated in their unrevised forms in America impelled him to forestall that threat by finding a publisher, and in March 1842, partly at his friend Edward FitzGerald's insistence, a contract was signed with

Edward Moxon Edward Moxon (12 December 1801 – 3 June 1858) was a British poet and publisher, significant in Victorian literature. Biography Moxon was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, where his father Michael worked in the wool trade. In 1817 he lef ...

Publication

Rossetti King Arthur and the Weeping Queens

A first edition of 800 copies was published by Moxon on 14 May, of which 500 copies had been sold by September. An edition was published in Boston the same year by the firm of W. D. Ticknor, who sent Tennyson one of the first copyright payments made by any American publisher to a British writer. Home sales were from the start highly encouraging, and his two-thirds profit agreement with Moxon earned Tennyson more than £600 during the first four years, alleviating his serious financial difficulties. As succeeding editions came out Tennyson began to add more poems, such as ''Come Not When I Am Dead'' and '' The Eagle''. The 10th edition, in 1857, was illustrated by

Rossetti Rossetti may refer to: * Biagio Rossetti (c. 1447–1516), architect and urbanist from Ferrara, the first to use modern methods * Carlo Rossetti (1614–1681), Italian cardinal, nobleman * Cezaro Rossetti (1901–1950), Scottish Esperanto writer ...

, Millais,

Holman Hunt William Holman Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolis ...

and others, and by 1868 a 19th edition had appeared.

Reception

Tennyson's friends were enthusiastic about the new poems included in the second volume.

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...

found it "infinitely gratifying to find one true soul more, a great melodious Poet-soul, breathing the vital air along with us. Such I discover, to my own satisfaction, is this Book of Alfred's." Edward FitzGerald thought it "such a volume as has not been published since the time of

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

: and which…will never be suffered to die", but when it came to the old poems in the first volume he deplored the inclusion of "the Merman, the Mermaid, and those everlasting Eleanores, Isabels, – which always were, and are, and must be, a nuisance".

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...

deplored the revisions there, privately writing that "The alterations are insane. ''Whatever'' is touched is spoiled." The reviewers differed from him on this point; indeed their reaction to the whole book was generally favourable, and not only because several of them were personal friends of Tennyson.

Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centre ...

, in the '' Church of England Quarterly Review'', praised the book and called Tennyson "a kind of philosophical Keats".

James Spedding James Spedding (28 June 1808 – 9 March 1881) was an English author, chiefly known as the editor of the works of Francis Bacon. Life He was born in Cumberland, the younger son of a country squire, and was educated at Bury St Edmunds and Trinit ...

wanted to see a long poem from him; he also, along with John Sterling and the anonymous reviewer in the ''Atlas'', thought that human sympathy was the strong point of the volume. On the other hand the ''

Christian Remembrancer The ''Christian Remembrancer'' was a high-church periodical which ran from 1819 to 1868. Joshua Watson and Henry Handley Norris, the owners of the ''British Critic'', encouraged Frederick Iremonger to start the ''Christian Remembrancer'' as a ...

'' believed Tennyson "had not yet become ''human'' enough", and similarly the ''

Westminster Review The ''Westminster Review'' was a quarterly United Kingdom, British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the libe ...

'', the ''London University Magazine'' and ''Hogg's Weekly Instructor'' urged him to draw on the sympathies of his own personal experiences. Many reviewers encouraged him to introduce more contemporary relevance and

didacticism Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasises instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is a conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to explain. ...

into his poems, rather than indulging his Romantic temperament. There was widespread agreement that the best poems were those dealing with domestic life, even when they were somewhat trite. The overall outcome of the publication of ''Poems'' was that Tennyson began to be taken much more seriously than he had previously been, with many seeing him as the leading poet of the younger generation, worthy of one day being made Poet Laureate.

Notes

References

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External links

Volume 1
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Volume 2
at the Internet Archive {{Authority control 1842 poems 1842 books English poetry collections Poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Contents